Minor football team should change Redskins name

Joanne Chianello, Ottawa Citizen08.26.2012

In this 2009 file photo, Kyle Napash, 18, one of a group of native Cree boys, who have came from communities in northern Quebec to participate in a weekend football camp with local football players. The irony of using borrowed equipment from the Nepean Redskins wasn’t lost on the boys, nor was it an issue as when asked by this photographer, they chuckled and said they were just happy to have the gear.

Councillor Jan Harder doesn’t see anything wrong with the name “Redskins,” the moniker used for decades by a Nepean youth football club.

In the last few weeks, Ian Campeau — also known as Deejay NDN — has renewed a campaign he began last year to try to get the Nepean Redskins to change their name. He doesn’t want Ottawa kids to grow up thinking it’s fine to use the term “redskin.”

On Monday, Campeau emailed Harder, who represents the ward where the football club is based, to ask for her support in petitioning for name change. Here’s Harder’s emailed response, which Campeau quickly posted on Facebook:

“You won’t get it (support) from me or anyone else I know. The Nepean Redskin football name is some 40 years old or more and in the entire time I have been in Nepean until the last year or so there has never been any talk of name change and even since then only a few including yourself. You are looking for trouble where none exists.”

Not surprisingly, the posted email set off a maelstrom of responses, helping to fuel the weeks-long debate. One woman wrote that she is “a local white person” who doesn’t agree with the name, while several commented a term can be racist even if it there was no intent to offend.

One posted comment reminded readers that students at South Carleton High School voted 15 years ago to change the name of their Redskins team to Storm.

Contacted Monday afternoon, Harder said the issue had nothing to do with her and that she had “no intention of getting involved.” When pressed about her response to Campeau, the councillor added that “I don’t see a problem with this. … I’m not going to be on a witch hunt for anybody.”

Harder said this was at least the third year that she had been contacted about the Redskins team name, adding that “this is not a new issue, but it’s not my issue.”

According to the Nepean club’s website, the football organization was founded in 1978 under the name “Barrhaven Buccaneers.” In 1981, the team’s name was changed to Nepean Redskins for some reason. Maybe “Redskins” sounded fiercer. Maybe someone was a fan of the Washington NFL team of the same name. Certainly, the logos of the teams appear similar.

What the Nepean amateur team and powerful NFL franchise also have in common is that they have racist names. There’s just no other way to consider the term “redskin.”

Virtually every English-language dictionary defines the term as offensive or derogatory. People have made many nuanced arguments about whether naming sports teams after aboriginal peoples is insulting or respectful, often based on how they are depicted in logos or as mascots. Others believe that those types of considerations are completely beside the point.

But it’s impossible to see any respect in the term “redskin.” Could you imagine a scenario when it would be acceptable to use a term like blackskin, or yellowskin? Of course not. Then how can “redskin” be tolerable?

Campeau, who is a self-described “card-carrying Nippissing Ojibway,” says he has never heard back from anyone at the Nepean club, adding that he didn’t mind if it took five years for the team to phase out the name.

The Washington Redskins used their massive amounts of cash to hire hotshot lawyers who were able to help the NFL team win a lawsuit against them on a what was essentially a technicality. Nepean’s Redskins have handled the issue so far by keeping a low profile. (Citizen attempts late Monday afternoon to contact the club’s president were unsuccessful.)

That may not be possible for much longer, as the rhetoric is ratcheting up on both sides.

“If you’re fighting to keep this name, then you’re inherently racist,” Campeau said. That doesn’t necessarily follow, but his tone is indicative of how aggressive the campaign is becoming.

Campeau and his supporters have been contacting sponsors of the Nepean football club, telling the firms that they will lead a boycott of their businesses if they continue to support the Redskins. At least one sponsor has reportedly pulled its support.

About a week ago, local radio personality Randall Moore took to the airwaves to defend the Nepean Redskins, but his message was mixed. On the one hand, he called the “complaint” that the name Redskins was racist “a ludicrous assertion.” He then went on to talk about the wonderful volunteers at the football club.

Just because the Nepean team has an offensive name, it doesn’t mean that people running that club are racist. Conversely, just because the folks involved in the club are well-meaning, it doesn’t make the Redskins name any less offensive.

Harder may be right that the Nepean Redskins controversy — which her comments have helped inflame — isn’t a City Hall issue, but she’s wrong in maintaining that no one cares or that the use of that word is not a problem.

There are plenty of racial terms that people didn’t think twice about using in casual conversation that are completely verboten now. What’s most amazing isn’t that a growing group of people want the Nepean Redskins to change their name, but that it took so long.

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